


something unpredictable (but in the end it's right)

by phoenixflight



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Case Fic, Fanwork of Fanwork, First Time, Fluff and Crack, Multi, Mutual Pining, Stanford Era (Supernatural), Threesome - F/M/M, bodyswap aftermath
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2020-12-28 03:57:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21130382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoenixflight/pseuds/phoenixflight
Summary: Dean didn’t mean to end up penpals with a twenty-something coed whose body he once spent the night in and who also happened to be his brother’s girlfriend. Or, not penpals, long distance phone buddies? If there was a word for their relationship, Dean didn’t know it.“Friends, Dean,” Jess told him longsufferingly when he floated the topic. “It’s called being friends.”~A sequel to one of my favorite SPN fics of all time -The Time Dean was Sam's Girlfriend and Jess Entered the Winchester Family Businessby fleshflutter - if you haven't read it, what are you waiting for?!?





	something unpredictable (but in the end it's right)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flesh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flesh/gifts).

> This fic is a sequel to one of my favorite SPN fics of all time - [The Time Dean was Sam's Girlfriend and Jess Entered the Winchester Family Business](https://fleshflutter.livejournal.com/5457.html) by fleshflutter, who I believe is no longer active in the fandom and whose work I ADORE.  
This will make no sense without reading that first, but if you haven't read it yet you are seriously missing out!  
Thanks to elliott for caring about this in the first place and cheerleading throughout the process.  
Title is from Time of Your Life by Green Day, which Sam definitely listened to and had feelings about.

Dean didn’t mean to end up penpals with a twenty-something coed whose body he once spent the night in and who also happened to be his brother’s girlfriend. Or, not penpals, long distance phone buddies? If there was a word for their relationship, Dean didn’t know it. 

“Friends, Dean,” Jess told him longsufferingly when he floated the topic. “It’s called being friends.” At least she didn’t crack a joke like  _ ever had one? _ Jess was a smart girl, and she knew him pretty well by now. “Killed anything this week?” 

“Nope. Total bust. But I’ve still got the weekend. How’s the thesis?” 

“Whenever it’s kicking my ass I remind myself about beating a not-zombie with a shovel and then I feel grateful to be writing my four-hundredth citation on childhood emotional development.” 

Dean grinned up at the stained motel ceiling. An empty pizza box and a sweating can of Bud were keeping him company for the night. Dad was in Tuscaloosa hunting wraiths, and Sam was fifteen hundred miles west. Before Jess called Dean had been planning to get buzzed and watch porn until he fell asleep.

Months ago, after the swap when they’d ended up back in their correct bodies, he’d assumed that he’d never hear from her again, unless it was a wedding invitation - and that was a thought that didn’t bear close examination - but she had called him back a couple of weeks later. “Did you feel different when you were in me?” she’d asked. 

Dean, pumping gas in the middle of the Rockies, had only picked up because Jess meant maybe Sam. He blinked. “Um. Apart from the fact that I had boobs and an actual life?” 

“Yeah. Like. Hormonally. It’s just, what a…” her voice wavered a little, “unique opportunity to ask the question, how much of our personality is mental, and how much is… biological.” 

“Are you drunk?” He checked his watch. Ten pm on the west coast. 

“Nooo. Well. Only a little. It’s not like there’s anyone else I can talk to about spending twenty four hours in someone else’s body.” 

“And you want to talk about hormones.” 

“I can’t help it. I’m a social scientist.” 

After that, she called every few weeks, and he found he didn’t hate it. She told him about classes, he told her about cases. No details, no locations, never enough to endanger her if anything after him tried to use her for information. It was kind of nice to talk to someone… normal, who knew about his life and didn’t care. But if he was being honest with himself - and really, self-awareness was overrated - what kept him hooked, strung out like an addict chasing the next hit, was news of Sam. 

Hearing little bits of his brother’s life, funny observations through Jess’s eyes as she got to know him better, made something twist up inside Dean’s stomach. It felt like doing twenty over the speed limit and taking the curve of a mountain road too fast. So good it was almost sickening.

Dean took a sip of his beer, and savored the feeling. “How’s Sam?” 

“Busy. I will kick anyone’s ass who says social psych isn’t real academics but jeez, I wouldn’t want to be studying law.” 

“You and me both. Is he eating?” 

“Massive quantities of frozen dinners and cup-o-noodles.” 

Dean nodded to himself. “That’s something at least. Hey, do me a favor though - go buy him some oranges or something. The last thing he needs is to get scurvy two weeks before midterms.” 

He could practically hear Jess rolling her eyes. “Sometimes I think you should come date him yourself.” 

Something squeezed uncomfortably in Dean’s chest. “Nah, you got it covered. The three of us wouldn’t fit in a bed.” 

“We could take turns,” she said, voice curled with laughter. Before he could stop himself, Dean was picturing it. Sam and Jess in bed, his brother’s wide shoulders and strong arms, Jess’s perfect tits and long toned legs. 

Dean shook his head sharply and drained the beer, chucking the can across the room. It hit the trashcan neatly, which meant he was still too sober. “You just want another excuse to get up close and personal with my mouth.” 

“It  _ is _ a very nice mouth,” she sighed. “Your cock is nice too. Although, Sam would give you a run for your money in that department…” 

“You really know how to sweet talk a guy, huh?” Dean growled. He was  _ not  _ thinking about his brother’s cock, and how his little brother wasn’t that little anymore. “Call me back when you’re ready to flatter my ego.” He hung up to the sound of her laughter. 

“...I swear to fucking god I saw it!” Carly was saying, hysterical and more than a little drunk. The other members of the intervention team were cooing and petting Carly, and Marissa was mixing more drinks, but Jess was frowning. A pair of hikers had gotten mauled outside of Half Moon Bay a couple of weeks ago - animal attack, according to the news. But Carly’s account of a clawed humanoid figure stalking her in Los Trancos seemed less crazy to Jess than the rest of the girls who were trying to soothe Carly. 

She slipped out on the back porch, closing the door on Lily’s voice saying, “It was just a bad trip, honey. You were high as balls.” Pulling out her cell phone she leaned against one of the patio chairs until the line clicked. “Dean?” 

He grunted in her ear. God, Dean had a sexy voice. It had to be, coming out of a mouth like that. If she wasn’t happily monogamous with Sam, she would seriously consider escalating their casual flirting into phone sex. After all, they both had been much closer than that to each other, despite having never met. 

“I think I might have a lead for you. Something… up your alley.” 

The background noise on the other end of the call faded, like Dean had walked out of a bar. “Tell me.” She explained about the hikers, and Carly’s encounter. Dean hummed. “Does Sam know?” 

“No, it was a girls-only intervention for Carly. What’s Sam got to do with it?” 

“Nothing. I’ll come check it out. I’m finishing up something here but I should be able to be there in… three days?” 

There was a little warm flutter in Jess’s belly at the thought of meeting him in person for the first time. In person, as a separate person, at least. “Okay. If you need a place to crash, you can stay at my place. My roommate is always having her friends from Portland sleep on the couch, so… open invitation.” 

“The couch, huh?” he leered, but it sounded habitual, like his heart wasn’t in it. “I’ll keep that in mind. Don’t go walking in the woods till I get there, okay?” 

In person, Jess was even more gorgeous than he remembered, and when he knocked on the door of the address she’d given him, she wrapped him up in a warm, girl-scented embrace. Startled, he hugged her back after a moment, and hardly even copped a feel. Hardly. He was only human. 

He did press his nose against her hair and breathe in, to see if he could smell Sam on her, but there was just the floral scent of her shampoo. 

She invited him in, and he looked around her apartment, familiar from the time he’d been in her body. Same potted plants, same Smurf mug. He lingered in front of the refrigerator, looking at the photographs, which had changed. There were more pictures of Sam - Sam hiking in dry hills, Sam holding an ice cream cone and grinning like a loon. Sam and Jess with their arms around each other, beaming. 

“So do you know what it is?” Jess asked. Dean had to clear his throat before he answered, turning away from the pictures.

“Got some ideas. Need to do research, though.” She was well aware how much he hated that, having heard him bitch about it many times before. 

“The library’s not far. You sure you won’t stay here, tonight?”

“Nah. Thanks though.” It was a matter of principle, that if he stayed with a girl he was  _ staying with a girl, _ but more than that it was the danger of Sam coming over. He was her boyfriend, after all. That would be awkward to explain. Possibly even more awkward than the time he’d hooked up with Sam’s prom date after she said goodnight to Sam. She’d just kissed Sam for a good long time on the porch and she was clearly worked up and Sammy apparently wasn’t doing anything about it - Dean happened to overhear some of their conversation because he’d had his ear pressed against the front door.  _ It’s not you, it’s me, _ Sam had said.  _ You deserve someone who can really love you. _ Where had Dean gone wrong with that boy? Anyway, he’d provided himself as a consolation prize, kissing Sam’s spit out of her mouth in the car, with two fingers in her pussy until she came on his hand. He’d thought hazily at the time, jerking himself off, that he and Sam ought to do this more often. 

Anyway, Sam had thrown a bitch fit about that, and then three months later left for Stanford, so there had been no repeats, but Dean could imagine that comparatively, the bitch fit would be epic if Sam found out that Dean had been secretly friend-wooing his first serious girlfriend. Or whatever. Sam was a drama queen. 

“I’ll let you know if I find anything,” he promised Jess.

Jess met Sam for a study date at their favorite coffee shop, kissed his cheek, and pulled out her laptop, putting it on top of a stack of his law textbooks. Their knees bumped comfortably under the little table. She’d spent an hour reworking three paragraphs too many times when her phone buzzed. Dean’s number. 

She flipped it open, plugging her other ear. “How’s it going?” 

“Nothing at the library, no violent history in the area - no more than usual anyway. I’m gonna go check out the scene of the first murder.” In the background she could hear the rumble of an engine. 

“Be careful. Call me when you finish. If I don’t hear from you, I'll…” she hesitated. Do what, call the cops? Dean had expressed his disdain for the boys in blue many times before. 

“I’ll call you,” he interrupted, before she’d found a satisfying threat, and hung up. Jess huffed at her phone. 

“Who’s that?” Sam asked. 

“My friend Dean,” Jess told him. “He’s going hiking, I’m his check-in person.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. 

Sam made an odd face. “Dean?” 

“Yeah. What?” 

“Nothing, just a coincidence. Silly it can still shake me up.” He shook his head and smiled, bangs in his eyes. “My brother’s name is Dean.” 

Jess sat perfectly still. The words landed in her head like dominoes made of lead - heavy and inevitable. As soon as they were spoken, she couldn’t believe that she’d missed it before.  _ Brothers _ . Holy shit. “The brother who took care of you when your dad was always gone?” she ventured. 

Sam nodded. He’d never been forthcoming about his family, and Jess knew just the bare bones. Rough childhood, moving a lot, absent father, older brother who took on almost god-like proportions in Sam’s retelling. It was always “my brother,” never a name. 

His stories were laden with obvious love and poorly concealed longing. He talked about "leaving" like it was an earthshaking, catastrophic choice, not a four year degree. 

She realized Sam was still waiting for a reaction, and shook herself mentally. Distract? Misdirect? “You want another cappuccino?” It wasn’t her most graceful save ever but Sam seemed to accept it. 

It was dusk by the time Dean called back, and Jess had dropped Sam off at his shared apartment south of campus before heading back to her place. She was reheating leftover spaghetti when her phone rang. 

She snapped it open. “Dean  _ Winchester _ ?” 

“ _ What _ ?” Dean said, and she knew immediately she was right. 

“Why didn’t you tell me he’s your brother?” 

“How did - what did...?” Dean spluttered. “Did Sam say something?” 

“Yes, he said, Dean is my brother’s name, and it was immediately obvious! You remind me to make sure he eats fruit, for god’s sake!” 

She heard Dean breathe out heavily on the other end of the line. 

“I… just wanted to make sure he was okay.” 

“What, by hooking him up with me and making me your long-distance babysitter? Is that why we’re still in touch?”

“No! A little.” 

“I thought you liked talking to me!” She was laying it on a little thick but hey, she was pissed, and Dean was easy. 

“I do!” He sounded as chagrined as any chastized boyfriend. “Jess, I do like talking to you. You’re amazing.” Actually, he sounded like he’d had a lot of practice with that particular placating-angry-women tone. “It’s just… a bonus that I get to check up on my baby brother.” 

“And the first time? When you borrowed me to get your little brother laid?” 

Dean had a coughing fit, which Jess enjoyed maliciously. 

“We - I - I didn’t  _ fuck _ him. And I swear to god, I didn’t do it on purpose. Wouldn’t know how to do a soul swap like that if I wanted to.” 

“Well, alright,” she conceded. “But it’s different to hear ‘make sure Sam eats his vegetables’ from some stranger than from the man who practically raised him.” 

There was a silence on the other end, full of highway noises. “Sam said that?” he asked finally. 

“Yeah. He talks about you. Just never mentioned your name.” 

She could practically feel Dean vibrating through the phone with the desperation to ask for details. Before he could, something occurred to her. “Wait, does this mean Sam knows about all this… stuff? The classified stuff?” 

“Yeah. Yeah, he does,” Dean said after another telling pause. 

“He could be helping you, then!” 

“He doesn’t want to see me.” 

“Why don’t you let him decide that. Call him up, tell him you happened to find a case nearby, let him ask you over for dinner if he wants to see you. I’ll call him, if you want. I could tell him the whole story...”

“No!” Dean interrupted. “No. We aren’t going to say anything, because if we explain about the swap he’s going to want all the details, and then I’ll have to admit that I kissed my brother…” He broke off, and they both thought about that for a moment. Dean drew in a sharp breath through his teeth, staticky on the cellular connection. “Anyway. We’re gonna pretend we’ve never met.” 

“But you’ll call him?” 

Another silence. “I’ll call him.” 

Jess went over to Sam's place the next morning, Saturday, with bagels from the deli on her block and two cups of coffee. Sam seemed normal, happy to see her, no indication that he had spoken to his estranged brother. Interrogation beyond “what’s up?” seemed like it would raise suspicions. 

“Got plans for the day?” she asked instead, dropping onto the ratty couch beside him. 

“A date with my criminology essay,” he said, kissing her briefly. He already had his textbooks spread out on the coffee table, the incurable nerd. It wasn’t even noon. 

“And your girlfriend?” 

“And my girlfriend. And my girlfriend’s thesis.”

“It’s a double date,” she said wryly, and tucked her toes under his thigh. There was a comfortable silence. “You remember our first kiss?” she said suddenly. She never raised the subject of their first date, lest she give away her own ignorance about the night. Dean had never shared details. 

“Of course.” A goofy, soft smile crossed Sam’s face. “You were being so weird that night but it was like… I dunno. Like we clicked. Somehow you looked and me and... and saw me for the first time.” 

“Oh, I had definitely seen you before.” She gave him a meaningful look, and he blushed. So easy to embarass, her Sam. So quick to doubt his own worth. 

“Thanks. I guess it just felt… like this instant connection.” His brow furrowed a little, and she steered the conversation away before he could start reflecting that that connection hadn’t actually been as strong afterward, as they started really dating. 

“What was so weird about it?”

“Well, first you poured your drink all over Anthony, and you’re not normally that kind of drama queen. And you were so upset about turning twenty two. Then you were trying to get me to talk about… about the one who got away, I guess. Not really first-date stuff. And then we kissed and you practically ran away but said you wanted to date anyway.” 

Well. Jess knew why Dean hadn’t mentioned any of that. Dumping a drink on Anthony, seriously? And it had to be weird to kiss your own brother, even in someone else’s body. But one thing caught her attention, just as it must have caught Dean’s. “The one who got away?”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Still curious about that?” 

“Of course,” she told him, and kissed him. “I’m curious about everything about you. You know all about my sordid history of track team sleepovers and getting laid after prom.” 

He shook his head. “It wasn’t anything real. It was just… a stupid crush, like I said. An infatuation. I knew it was wrong - I mean, that it wasn’t... couldn’t go anywhere. And that… the other person didn’t feel the same way. So I did the only thing I could do. I left.” 

“You left,” Jess said slowly. Sam had never provided details of his childhood itinerancy, but from Dean she had gathered that their father - of the sexy, growly voice and the barked orders - had driven their movements, case after case, state after state. Of course she hadn’t put together Dean’s story and the gaps in it where, in retrospect, an estranged brother fit, with her boyfriend. “This person… a guy?”

Sam nodded, hair falling over his face. He’d told her about being bi a while ago but it still made him shy to talk about. 

A guy that Sam had left. Not “I had to leave” or “my family moved on” - a choice that Sam had made. And as far as she could tell with the jumbled, jigsaw image she had of Sam’s life, there was only one person who fit the bill. 

Holy shit. 

Well, she couldn’t blame him. From the fuckable mouth, to the grim sense of humor, to the superhero-dayjob, Dean was easy to fall in love with. 

Sitting back, she took a sip of her coffee, and wondered if Dean knew. 

Sam’s phone rang. 

Dean scuffed a foot against the pavement as the line rang, leaned against his Baby, and refused to think about hanging up. Only pussies did that dial-change-your-mind-dial-again thing. Dean could make a phone call like a man. 

“Dean?” 

Sam sounded more startled than a phone call really warranted. Wasn’t Dean allowed to call his baby brother? It wasn’t like he never called. Okay, he called once a year, on Sam’s birthday. But whatever. That didn’t mean he couldn’t call other times. Like now. He was calling now, that counted for something, didn’t it?

He took a deep breath. “Hey.” 

“Hey,” Sam said. 

“So, uh.” Dean tapped his thumb against the Impala’s hood. “I’m in your neck of the woods.” 

“Really?” 

“Yeah. On a case.” The metal was warm beneath his palm. 

“A case? Here?” 

“Half Moon Bay. Mutilated tourists at the state park.” 

“I didn’t hear about it.” 

“Losing your edge, Sammy.” 

Sam didn’t bite. “So what do you think it is?” 

“Sasquatch.” 

“What, really?” Dean could picture Sam’s little frown. “They’re not violent. And this isn’t their native range.” 

“Yeah, but get this, it’s a little one. I found tracks.”

“....little sasquatch tracks.” 

“Splayed toe, elongated heel, no distinct arch, pacing gait. Bout the size of my palm. Anyway, the surviving witness said that it was small-human sized.” 

“And you think it attacked someone.” 

“I just look at the evidence, man. You’re the fucking zoologist.”

“Okay, okay. Working hypothesis, rogue baby sasquatch. Maybe the warm weather is inciting violent tendencies. You got a plan?” 

“Yeah. It’s called a couple of guns and a long hike.” 

Sam heaved a long, familiar sigh. Dean’s mouth twitched. Pissing off Sammy never got old. “Look. If you’re in the area, why don’t you come by and we can talk about it?” 

“I dunno Sammy.” He leaned back against the car, crossing his ankles. “I hate to waste time. People could die, ya know.”

“They’re nocturnal, jerk. It’s only noon. I’m giving you my address, you got something to write with?”

Dean’s heart was beating fast. He fished a crumpled receipt and a pen out of the glove compartment, and found his mouth was dry enough that he had to swallow to speak. “Yeah.” 

“So it turns out my brother, Dean, is passing through town, and he’s coming over,” Sam said. Jess had made herself scarce while they talked on the phone although she couldn’t help overhearing the word ‘sasquatch’ which… seriously? She’d liked it better when Dean was insisting it was all just a secret government experiment, safely within the realm of human fuckery. He’d given up that cover story at some point. Jess missed it. 

It only took Dean twenty minutes from wherever he was staying. Sam paced the whole time, taking calming, pre-finals style breaths. Jess hovered, unreasonably anxious. It wasn’t as if Dean was an unknown quantity. But the two of them together… that was not only new but potentially volatile. 

Both Jess and Sam jumped at the knock on the door. Sam took another deep, fortifying breath and opened it. 

The brothers faced one another across the threshold. Side by side, Dean - who was a tall man - was almost comically dwarfed by his younger brother. 

“Hey,” Dean said, and Sam returned, “Hey,” in a hoarse voice. 

Unbelievable. Jess poked her head around Sam’s elbow. “Are you going to hug your brother?” she said, to no one in particular. 

Sam flushed immediately, lifting a hand to rub the back of his neck. “Ah - Jess. Um, we don’t… that’s not really…” 

“C’mere, bitch,” Dean grunted, gripping Sam’s shoulder with one hand and dragging him roughly into an embrace. Sam made a little squeaking noise and folded into him. Even though Dean was the smaller of the two, his arms were on top, Sam hunched down to fit against his chest. It must have been like that almost their whole lives, Jess realized - bigger Dean, with Sam tucked against him protectively. Old habits dying hard. 

They held each other long enough that Jess had to look away, her own heart pounding with the weight of unspoken emotion flooding between them. When they broke apart both were flustered, shuffling and avoiding eye contact. 

Sam seemed to remember her suddenly. “Dean, this is my girlfriend, Jess.” 

Dean gave her a deliberate one-over, and said, “Sammy, she is way out of your league.” Sam punched him. 

Jess rolled her eyes at Dean behind Sam’s back. She’d have to remind him that he’d been singing a different tune when he hooked up with Sam while wearing her body and then practically begged her to give Sam a chance. “You’re the brother I’ve heard so much about.” 

“The one and only.” Dean twinkled at her. “So, show me your digs, Sammy.” 

Sam stepped back, almost reluctantly, and Dean wandered in like he belonged, poking through the kitchen and opening the fridge. “Chinese takeout and fancy microbrews? Not a bad life, college boy. It wouldn’t kill you to eat an apple though.” He seemed lit up around his brother, grinning at Sam’s discomfiture - she had never seen Dean like this, but most of her attention was on Sam. 

Sam’s turmoil was obvious. Reflexive annoyance with Dean’s attitude, which was clearly the desired effect, warred with something softly joyful and almost wondering. He was hypnotized by Dean, trailing him like a dog, hardly taking his eyes off him. It was, she realized with a jolt, exactly the way he used to look at her, when he thought she was out of bounds. 

Jess sank down on the couch to think about that while the two of them finished the short tour - from the other room, she could hear Dean ribbing Sam about hiding his porn stash - and wondered how Dean could possibly not know. But she didn’t think he did. He was a man of action or avoidance. Either he would already be fucking Sam, or he wouldn’t be here at all. Certainly not looking relaxed and cracking jokes at his brother’s expense. 

She had to close her eyes briefly at the thought of the two of them in bed together. Sexual fidelity had never been a particular concern of hers - she wouldn’t have been able to date Anthony as long as she had if it was. The idea of sharing Sam with his brother, with  _ Dean  _ who, in all honesty, she would have jumped at any point in the last year given the barest hint of a plausible excuse, was  _ hot like fire. _

She squirmed a little, the pit of her stomach hot. Guys were allowed to jerk off to twin cheerleaders or whatever, right? 

But did Dean feel the same way? Would he recognize it, even if he did? The guy could have written a book on repression, in Jess’s graduate-level psych opinion. She wished all this had come to light when she had time to get Dean alone, get him drunk, and grill him on his sexual fantasies. That was a thought accompanied by another pleasant tingle. 

Jess could hear the two of them talking about the hunt now, Sam shushing Dean repeatedly in deference to her ignorance, presumably. It gave her a regretful pang to think of all the ways Sam had lied to her - or at least grossly omitted the truth - in their time together, but she understood. How could you explain to someone who hadn’t seen it for themselves the kinds of things he kept hidden? The answer, clearly, was you didn’t try. 

She pretended to be busy with her stacks of research notes when they came back into the living room, although she wasn’t processing any of the words on the pages. 

“Dean and I are going out tonight,” Sam said, meeting her gaze and then cutting his eyes away. His tells were obvious. “Might not be back till late.”

“Sure,” she agreed easily, rolling her eyes at Dean behind Sam’s back. 

They still had hours to kill before sundown, and Sam and Jess really did have school work to do. Dean teased Sam about being a geek but the affection was obvious, and he ruffled Sam’s hair on the way to get a beer from the fridge. Sam ducked away, red-faced, lips twisted in an expression somewhere between embarrassment and guilty happiness. Watching him, Jess reflected that Dean had been the missing key to Sam all along. She had never seen Sam as raw and authentic as this boy blushing on the couch while his brother teased him. 

Coming back with a bottle of locally made amber ale, Dean slouched down on the couch and reached for the remote, turning the TV on and lowering the volume until it was just a murmur. “Don’t mind me,” he said, kicking his boots up on the coffee table. Jess raised her eyebrows but it wasn’t  _ her _ coffee table. “Those books aren’t gonna read themselves.” 

Sam kept casting glances at his brother from under his lashes, as if checking that he was still there, but he seemed unbothered by the noise of the TV, which was distracting Jess even at low volume. Sam had always been good at working in noisy places - crowded coffee shops, the campus cafeteria, a busy afternoon the quad. 

When whatever action flick Dean had found finished and Back to the Future started, Jess gave up on her dissertation, and went to make popcorn. Dean grinned at her as she settled on the couch, not quite touching him, aware of Sam watching them both. Sam’s studiousness didn’t last long after that. 

All three of them ended up piled on the couch with Jess in the middle, leaning against Sam’s chest, with her feet tucked up on the cushions and her toes brushing Dean’s thigh. His arm was slung along the back of the couch behind her, and there was no graceful way to check but she was pretty sure from the way Sam was leaning in, that Dean’s hand was resting on Sam’s shoulder. It felt comfortable and electric. 

They watched movies on the sci-fi channel until dinner time, and then ordered Chinese takeout from the place around the block. Sam ordered mu shu pork for Jess and beef lo mein for Dean without having to ask either of them, 

“Here, you pick it up, Sammy,” Dean said, pulling out his wallet and peeling out a couple of grubby bills. “I don’t know how to get there.” 

Sam raised his eyebrows. “It’s literally two blocks away. Since when have you had trouble finding a greasy spoon joint? And it’s Sam.” 

“Sure,  _ Sam _ . But it’s a nice night out, and you probably need to stretch those freaky long legs of yous. I’m sure a college boy like you isn’t getting enough exercise.” 

Sam muttered something about hunting tonight that Jess clearly wasn’t supposed to hear, and she shooed him off. “Go on, Sam. I wanna grill your brother, and he wants to grill me.”

Sam looked back and forth between them. “That’s what I’m afraid of.” 

Dean spread his hands. “What am I gonna do, huh?”

“It’s a bad policy to leave Dean alone with pretty girls,” Sam said, grimacing at Jess. 

“I’m wounded.” Dean slapped a hand over his heart. “I can’t tell if I’m more offended that you think I’d make a pass at your girl, or that you think I’d be done by the time you got back with takeout.” 

Sam pursed his lips in a flat line as Jess smothered her laughter. “It’s happened before.” 

“Yeah? Name once.” 

‘What about that time with Cindy Shrader?”

“Cindy, that was her name.” Dean snapped his fingers. “I was just finishing what you started, man. S’bad manners to kiss a girl and leave her hanging.” 

“You fucked my prom date in the backseat of the Impala!” Sam exclaimed. Oh, Jess really wanted the rest of that story. 

Dean just shrugged and grinned. “That doesn’t count as poaching, I thought you were done with her. We coulda shared her if you’d said something.” 

Sam went bright red and said, “I’ll get the takeout.” 

When the front door closed behind him, Jess turned to Dean. “Shared her, huh? That something you two do?” 

Dean shifted a little on the couch, fiddling with the label of his beer bottle. “Nah. We’re brothers. I’m just messing with Sam.” 

“That’s too bad.” She leaned closer, letting her voice drop. “Because I wouldn’t mind being in the middle of that.” Jess could hear him breathing faster. “And I don’t think Sam would mind the idea either.” 

Dean was frozen, watching her with wide, wary eyes. He licked his lips a couple of times - and  _ god _ that  _ mouth, _ it ought to be illegal - and said hoarsely, “Pretty sure he’d have second thoughts about getting in bed with his brother.” 

She held his gaze. “I know you know Sam better than anyone, probably, but I’m the one who fucks him five times a week. I know what Sam looks like when he wants something. Someone.” Dean’s freckles which normally stood out on his pale cheeks, faded slowly as he flushed. They stared at each other for a long moment, and then Jess said, “Think about it.” 

Dean said nothing else until Sam came back with the food, and then ate in uncharacteristic silence, avoiding Sam’s suspicious glances. Jess gave him her best innocent expression, and a kiss that tasted like plum sauce. 

It was 11pm and Sam and Dean were trekking through the dry hills of the Los Trancos Preserve, air pungent with bay leaves and sweetgrass, leaves crunching underfoot. Dean was grumbling under his breath about poison oak. 

“Well it’s a good thing you’re not wearing shorts,” Sam muttered. 

“What kind of a sasquatch ends up here?” Dean complained. “You can see the city lights through the trees!” 

“That’s what I said, it doesn’t fit the behavioral profile. So instead we’re out here in the middle of a fucking park, looking for a notoriously elusive creature that might not be the right thing at all…”

“Well your yammering isn’t going to help us find - hey.” The sweep of Dean’s flashlight caught something humanoid. He knew that in the dark when you were hunting something, every shadow looked like a monster. He swept the light back. “Sam,” he whispered. 

“I see it.” 

Smallish, human sized but not human proportioned, long arms, curved shoulders; standing perfectly still like a spooked deer. It could have been an eerily shaped stump except the flashlight beam caught two gleaming eyes. 

Dean raised his gun. 

“Wait,” Sam hissed. Dean took his eyes momentarily off the target long enough to shoot Sam an incredulous glare. “They’re typically nonviolent,” Sam reminded him. “And I’ve never seen a recorded encounter with a juvenile.” 

“You wanna, what, study it? Maybe we can get a cat carrier and take it home with us.” 

“No, I just don’t think that the shoot-first approach is necessary here!” 

Behind them, a branch snapped. 

They whirled, the beams of their flashlights catching a massive mountain of matted fur, and long arms reaching toward them, claws extended. 

Jess heard them bickering before they got to the apartment door. That was good, at least neither of them were dead. She had spent the last four hours completely unable to focus or sleep, pacing around Sam’s apartment with jittery energy. At least his roommate was out of town, thank god for small favors. 

Jumping up off the couch when she heard their voices, she threw open the door and froze. They were leaning together, one of Dean’s arms slung across Sam’s shoulders, Sam hunched down to equalize their height, his hand on Dean’s chest. Dean’s left leg was covered in blood. 

“...was I supposed to know it had a mama nearby?” Dean was saying, voice tight with pain. “I guess we know what makes sasquatches violent.”

“It makes sense, we should have thought of it before.”

“You gonna write a paper on it or something?”

“I…” Sam glanced up and saw Jess standing in the door. “Jess! It’s… uh, not as bad as it looks. He… fell.” Sam’s face scrunched up miserably.

“Hey, don’t worry about her, I bet she can take it. Looks like the level-headed type.” Dean quirked an eyebrow at her, an invitation to share the joke despite his sallow color and the crease of pain in his forehead. “We were hunting a monster and I got swiped but it’s just a flesh wound.” 

Jess swallowed and nodded. Sam looked horrified. “Dean!”

“Relax,” Dean muttered. “She’s a keeper. You got bandages?”

“Of course.” Distracted, Sam maneuvered Dean into the bathroom and Jess ran for the first aid kit. Sam kept one of the huge, search and rescue style bags, and she’d always assumed it was a quirk of having a military father. They’d gotten Dean’s pants off and Jess was too shaken to even enjoy the view of Dean in his threadbare boxers, because of the bright gashes on his upper thigh. 

“...fucking lucky she missed your artery,” Sam was muttering, sponging blood away with a clean towel. 

“Nah,” Dean said. He was seated on the edge of the bath, leaning back against the wall, looking even paler in the harsh bathroom light. “I know how to keep my legs closed when it counts.” He flicked his eyes up to Jess. “Hey, what’s a guy gotta do to get a drink around here?” 

She went and got the bottle of Wild Turkey from above the microwave and when she returned, Sam was stitching the widest of Dean’s wounds with a steady hand. Her stomach rolled. She had seen Sam mend clothes and sew buttons - a charming skill for a big man like him, she’d thought. It was not charming now, with Dean’s head tilted back, eyes closed and teeth gritted, Sam’s fingers bloody on the needle. Jess thought about kneeling in an open grave, stitching a zombie’s mouth shut in the gray light before dawn, and about two boys growing up in a life like that. 

Feeling queasy, she left the bathroom and went to sit in the living room, staring at her own reflection in the blank TV screen. She heard the faucet turn on in the bathroom, and running water. After another five minutes or so, Dean emerged, limping and bitching his way down the hall, with his brother hovering behind him. He lowered himself onto the couch beside Jess, still clutching the bottle of bourbon. “Stop clucking, Sam, and go wash up. You’ve still got leaves in your hair.” 

Sam hesitated, hovering above them. “Jess… all this...”

She gave him a weak smile. “It’s okay, Sam. Take a shower.” 

He swallowed, looking between the two of them. “Okay. Okay.” 

“Are you alright?” she asked Dean when the water came on in the bathroom with a clunk and a whoosh. 

“Yeah,” he sighed, leaning back against the arm of the couch and carefully lifting his injured leg up, stretching it behind where she was perched on the edge of the cushions. The gouges on his thigh were covered with a clean white bandage. “This okay?” He was in his boxers, thin and threadbare, knees spread obscenely with one leg still on the floor. 

Jess dragged her eyes away from the familiar bulge of his soft cock beneath the cotton. “Yeah. It’s fine.” He smirked, running a hand down his stomach to frame his package. She remembered putting those calloused hands on that cock when she was wearing his body. “Hey.” She smacked his good thigh. “I know what you’re doing.” 

“Who me?” But he dropped the sexy act. “You know you’re going to have to tell him something,” Dean continued conversationally, as if picking up a dropped topic. “Sammy’s smart. He’ll niggle at something that’s not quite right, like why you aren’t asking twenty questions right now. You shoulda seen him with a loose tooth.” 

Knowing Dean was Sam’s brother filled a blank place about Dean also, Jess thought. It was like the whole of him made sense in a sudden, jarring way, when he referred to Sam so casually and proprietarily. “Why is this my problem? Couldn’t you tell him?” 

“He’s not suspicious of my response.”

Jess rolled her eyes. “Cop out. You could explain it just as well as me.” 

“Yeah well, good leadership is about good delegation. Learned that from dad.” 

The shower shut off. “That was fast,” Jess said. 

“Yeah, he’s got two shower settings. Military speed or jerking off and hogging all the hot water.” 

“That’s you, not me,” Sam said, coming out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist and his dirty clothes in one hand. Jess glanced appreciatively at his abs. Some things never got old. “What are you telling her anyway?” 

“Just a little about the hunt,” Dean said, and Jess and Sam both looked at him sharply. Dean nudged her with the foot behind her back that Sam couldn’t see. 

“Yeah, I…” Jess tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want you to think I was crazy, but I… saw something once. Something weird.”

“What? When?” 

“Ages ago.” She shook her head. “It was a… like a dead body attacking this girl. I thought… not a zombie, right? That would be insane.” She giggled a little hysterically, letting the stress of the day bleed into her memory of that previous stressful day which remained in her top five of all time most mixed experiences. “But that’s what it looked like. And then a guy came along and beat it over the head with a shovel and chased it down, and I went back to my life and tried not to think about it.” There. That was almost all true. Glancing quickly at Dean, she saw him giving her an impressed look, and preened a little. 

Sam processed that, big gears turning like when he was studying some complicated case law. “You ran into another hunter.” 

“Yeah. That’s not so surprising, right?” She gave him her best innocent eyes. “Dean says stuff like this happens under people’s noses all the time and mostly no one ever notices.” 

Sam looked at his brother, and back at her. “He’s right. You’re really… not freaking out?” 

Jess couldn’t tell him that she’d had her freak-out at an accelerated pace the night she spent in his brother’s body, digging up a grave, so she just nodded. “Not freaking out. Promise.” 

“Told you she was a keeper,” Dean said, grinning at both of them. “Knew it.” She shoved at his knee a little, knowing his smugness was partially justified. He winked at her. 

“We all need to get some sleep,” she said. “The couch pulls out.” 

“Futon, love it.” Dean stretched. “Can’t wait for that lumpy mattress experience. There’s nothing like it.”

Sam was frowning again, hair curling damply against his forehead. “You sure you’ll be alright? You can take the bed if you want…” He glanced at Jess, realizing he was offering to modify both their sleeping arrangements without asking her. He was always considerate like that. 

Dean waved him off. “Nah. I’ll be fine. It’s my leg that’s busted, not my back.” 

They got the futon unfolded and all settled into bed. “Call if you need anything,” Jess told Dean. “We’ll leave the door open.” He grunted in response. 

It was almost two am, but Jess was buzzed, wide awake. In bed, she curled up against Sam’s side, hand over his heart, smelling the shampoo-freshness of his hair. It was true that she’d had plenty of time to accustom herself to the idea of the paranormal, but fitting Sam into that picture was new. 

Sam seemed to have energy to burn too, if the hard-on nudging against her thigh was any indication. Jess squirmed around until she could get her knees on either side of Sam’s hips, grinding his cock against her pussy through her thin pajama shorts. He groaned, softly, huge hands resting on her back. 

She lowered her head beside Sam’s ear and whispered, “You have to be quiet or your brother will hear us.” 

His whole body jolted, breath hitching, and she felt his cock jerk against her. Jackpot. Jess grinned in the dark. 

They fucked fast and hard, bedsprings squeaking as Jess rode Sam’s cock, bent over so she could dirty talk in his ear. “Do you think Dean’s listening?” 

Sam swore, hips snapping urgently into her, both feet braced on the bed for leverage. Sweat was beading on his brow from the exertion and Jess was panting hard as she pushed back into his thrusts. “Think he’s touching himself? Listening to us?” Jesus, she was so wet, leaking all over Sam’s balls, and she had never seen him this turned on, this frantic with arousal. “Do you like that, showing off for him? Show him how you can make me scream?” 

It barely took a finger on her clit to send her over the edge and she let herself cry out, clenching down hard around Sam’s cock as the thought of Dean listening. 

“Are you going to come so he can hear you?” she whispered, and Sam did, arching up into her with a choked shout, thick cock pulsing deep inside her.

Pushing herself up, Jess leaned over and kissed Sam, then swung her legs out of bed. “C’mon.” She could feel his come and her own juices leaking out of her, making the tops of her thighs slippery. 

“Jess?” He was still dazed and orgasm-stupid. “Where are you going?”

Naked, she padded out to the living room, hearing Sam scramble out of bed behind her. Dean was awake, turning his head toward her as she entered. Even in the dark she could read the intensity in his gaze as arousal. 

Jess took a breath. “I want to sit on your face.” 

Dean’s gaze flew to Sam, standing wide-eyed in the doorway, and back to her. “Jess,” he said, voice rough. God, he sounded just like his dad, and wasn’t that the weirdest thought to have? 

“Or do you not want to lick your brother’s come out of my pussy?” 

Both of them made an identical noise - she recognized it from Sam. It was his “brutally turned on” groan. Dean was staring up at her, pupils blown almost black in his green eyes. Before he could wrestle common sense back from lust, she shifted her hips suggestively, widening her stance, and he grabbed her. 

Fingers digging into her thighs hard enough to bruise, Dean hauled her onto the futon and shoved his face between her legs. It was graceless and starving. He ignored her clit entirely in favor of shoving his tongue up inside her as deep as it would go and his hips jolted up off the couch. He was making low, hungry grunting sounds. Standing in the doorway, Sam groaned as if in answer. 

Jess whined, squirming a little and Dean remembered his manners, pulling back to apply more technique.  _ Fuck, _ he was good with his mouth when he was paying attention and not just chasing the taste of Sam inside her. She came with a squeak, grinding slickly against his face, and he didn’t let up, just licked her through it until she was shaking and ready to go again. 

The sheets had fallen away, and his hard-on was pressed against the front of his boxers, leaving a wet spot on the fabric. Reaching down, Jess slipped her hand beneath the elastic, and Dean’s hips jerked. 

She heard Sam suck in a breath and realized that he had crossed to stand close to the couch. He was staring down at his brother’s hands spread on her thighs. Jess moaned, tossing her head back as Dean slid two fingers inside her, lifting her head to look at Sam. He was open-mouthed and dark eyed. The pair of sweatpants he’d pulled on when he followed her out of the bedroom was obviously tented. 

Dean’s cock was silky and sticky beneath her fingers, familiar. She sighed happily, stroking it the way she remembered from her brief experiment in cock-owning. The sound he made vibrated against her cunt and she rocked against his chin, mouth open. Sam palmed himself through his sweats, fully hard again. PItching forward a little bit, Jess pressed her face against the fabric, breathing in the smell of laundry soap and Sam and her own pussy still on his cock. 

Dean made a disgruntled noise as the movement lifted her off of his mouth, and raised his head to chase her with his tongue. Working Dean’s dick with one hand Jess tugged Sam’s pants down with the other. She and Sam whimpered together as she got her lips around Sam’s cock and Dean got his tongue up inside her again. 

She worked both brothers together, hands and mouth, losing coordination as Dean made her come again, shuddering and oversensitive. Batting feebly at Dean’s face she pulled away, coltishly weak-limbed after her third orgasm of the night. Jess flopped down beside Dean on the futon, leaving Sam standing over both of them, hard, wet cock in hand. Dean’s own face was glistening with her slick and the pink head of his cock was poking out of boxers. She watched the brothers look at each other, felt the tension in the room rise now that she wasn’t plausibly in between them. 

Dean kept licking his lips, chasing the taste of her, and it sent a hot aftershock through Jess’s belly. Leaning over, she gave into a year’s worth of curiosity about what it would be like to kiss that mouth, and tried it. His technique was just as practiced here as it had been between her legs, and as he angled his head she had the feeling he was showing off for Sam. Flicking out her tongue to lick her own salty-sour taste off his lips, she could admit that she was doing the same. 

Reaching down, she gripped Dean’s cock again, and whispered, “He wants to watch you come, Dean.” 

The wounded, helpless sound Sam made confirmed it. Dean’s eyes widened, and then he was shuddering, cock spurting over her hand and his own stomach. Gaping down at them, Sam cupped a hand over the head of his cock and came also. 

The silence of their heartbeats and heavy breathing suddenly sounded very loud. In the kitchen, the refrigerator clicked on with a hum, and a dog barked somewhere outside. 

Jess had felt so confident when she’d initiated this, and she was still sure that her read of both of them was correct, but watching their identical expressions of shell-shock she felt uncertainty bleeding in. She was exhausted suddenly, and not ready to deal with the fallout at - she glanced at the glowing clock on the VHS player under the TV - 3:07 in the morning. 

“D’you think we’d break the couch if we all slept here?” she mumbled. 

Sam cleared his throat uncertainly. “Bed’s bigger.” 

“Dean’s leg.”

“I can walk,” he said, predictably. “Sammy won’t fit on the couch.” 

“C’mon then.” Sitting up she tugged at his shoulder, wrapping her other hand around Sam’s wrist. “Bed.” 

Dean’s bad leg actually made things easier. Sam slipped an arm beneath his shoulders to support him, despite Dean’s griping that he was fine, and having an excuse to touch seemed to relax both of them. They leaned into one another as the three of them shuffled down the hall, and when they reached the bedroom, Sam and Dean settled together with a minimum of jostling and fuss. 

Jess slipped in on the other side of the bed, beside Sam, curling up against his side. Dean’s arm was slung over Sam’s chest, his knuckles brushing against Jess’s bare shoulder. In the exhausted fog of a long day, a late night, and three orgasms, everything seemed very clear and simple. It felt as if there were no more secrets between the three of them, like things had fallen into place where they belonged. Something warm and hopeful nestled under her ribs as she slipped into sleep. 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are love!   
Follow me on my spn tumblr at [ nevergettingoverwincest](http://nevergettingoverwincest.tumblr.com)


End file.
